Sunday, February 24, 2013

Animé Inspiration: InuYasha

One thing that's been a constant throughout my "writing" years... which is, at this point, half of my life... cuz I started when I was 13...When I find a new source of interest, something I can totally leap into and get lost in, chances are extremely good (like, 90% if not 100 of the time) that it'll find its way into my writing at some point...All of it blurs together eventually... where it's all that 4Kids animation making its way into my Pokémon fanfiction... or my new favorite movies being referenced in my novels ("Phantom of the Opera" into my sequel to Jonas's story... which is so weak in its overall storyline that I highly doubt anyone will be reading it)...I have seen very little of that lately. The last huge inspiration I had was Mr. Downey, after whom I'd written a few accounts with his characters in mind... Larry Paul from "Ally McBeal" and Julian Wells from "Less than Zero"... characters pretty hard to let go of while watching their perspective source material.Only difference is that I doubt I can stomach "Less than Zero" in its entirety ever again.Other than that, all my writing has been blogging... whether it's mentioning my latest favorite movies and books and actors and musicians... or discussing ideas I'm considering writing about.I've found it very hard to commit to any sort of long-term project because I don't know where to begin. Plus all the stuff I'd learn either in my creative writing class or online from my writer's digest newsletters puts a lot of extra pressure on me, things that I have to keep in mind, and honestly, it's a major hassle trying to get everything just right...Supposing I develop that degree of OCD in my writing and I'd never get anything done...Nothing really new to report on Cassandra (which I haven't looked at in MONTHS) or Te Busque (I'm golden as long as I don't tire of my 30+ song playlists)...What I'm eventually gonna discuss happened during Bleach the other night...the series is finally starting to pick back up again. Not just being back to the main story arc, but we're finally back to the main characters... Ichigo, Rukia, Orihime, Chad and Reji... which I haven't seen any of in what feels like FOREVER... certainly not in this story arc...They showed a commercial that was a mish-mash of all the different animé on Toonami/Adult Swim... seeing the few clips they showed of InuYasha had me heart swell like it hadn't in a long time... not that it's been FOREVER since the last time I watched any of my DVD's (I think I blew close to $200 on those DVD's, money I had saved up on the side, within 3-5 month period, lol... but I have them, therefore I am grateful I'm able to look back).For a number of reasons, I'd used the likeness of Sesshomaru as my avatar for a number of blogs I've operated over recent years. Around that time, I was starting to find a great deal of interest in him, and he kinda represented the next direction I was going in (blogging about the elusive musician Prince), having that same type of personality.Anyways, I was basking in the glow of all those clips I hadn't seen in a long time and I brought out my iPod to listen to some animé themes I found online...after putting the entirety of my fav animé soundtracks on my iPod, I had since removed all but three because, let's face it, I wasn't listening to them and they were taking up space for other music.Luckily I left behind "Come"... I believe it's the 2nd to last ending theme used in InuYasha... it's one of those nighttime anthems I like to listen to before bed because the visual is rooted in darkness, night time imagery... very soothing and relaxing...then right behind it was "Life" by Yui... one of the ending themes for Bleach... my god, the first time I heard it, I absolutely fell in love with it... they started using it during the latter part of the story arc where Ichigo is rescuing Rukia from execution in the Soul Society... when he actually starts to get around to achieving that objectiveso anyway, between those two, I was feeling pretty good...then any possibility of falling asleep was interrupted by the ice forming in my veins...I double-checked online last night as well as this morning to make sure my complaint to Amazon held...last September, I did an entry about someone who stole "White Tiger" and presented it as their own work... someone let me know about this, I made the complaint to Amazon and they had since removed the listing from their site (and I believe the rest of her works as well). I checked all through the Internet to submit the allegations if they weren't alleged already...someone already got to her GoodReads account, posting on all of her "stories" that they were stolenand for your viewing pleasure, I'll include someone's mention of the June Ashley scandal... she was either the person who clued me in or a friend of hers that was a victimhttp://raicodoll.tumblr.com/post/32485276156be sure to spread the wordI'd say that "thankfully" I took care of this before too much could be screwed up...but it would seem none of the stuff she stole was good enough to receive any acclaim...I don't think I saw a single one with more than a 2 star-review...my story when it was on Amazon had maybe 3 positive reviews and the rest were very negative...that has me seething on the inside in a "rolling in my grave" sort of way... I felt bad about the things they said about my story, that they didn't like it and, worse, it sounded like it was written by a kid... my ego took a hit, but perhaps it was for the bestI hadn't thought about this in quite a few months, but my peace of mind was immediately arrested... and I'm having trouble making bail... all proverbially, of courseOne of these days, I do hope to make good on this story... but there's an overwhelming wealth of edits I still need to do...as I'm sure I'd posted a couple of times, I want to avoid any sort of scandal, someone telling me that my material infringes on InuYasha and I shouldn't take complete credit for that...I have a strong enough character (in her overall make-up, not so much as a person) that I can totally make good for her sake.I thought this over last night when I was having trouble falling asleep.How much of my original material, my fanfiction, could I change and/or would need to change for me to escape comparison?One of the latest best sellers was "50 shades of grey"... which I have yet to read (and don't have any immediate plans to do so... but I wouldn't rule it out)... but originally started out as a fanfiction of "Twilight"... and nobody draws the comparisons anymore...lol...I'd say "If E.L. James can do it, I can do it too"... except I don't plan on turning my story into an X-rated S&M sex rompThe principle is the same though... if she can make a departure from a fanfiction and make it a success story, I can do the same...My storyline is solid... for the most part...if anything, I was thinking of changing a few character back stories and completely removing one villain from the equation...so technically, some version of Sesshomaru will still be in the mix... but I'll have to make him less of what he is... he's a character where you can't be completely sure of how evil and bad he is because he has that duality, that grey area... he'll be more ruthless... and to eliminate Naraku from the equation, I might decide for my Sesshomaru character to have a partner or assistant who is versed in sorcery... he or she will make his/her way into the mix for one specific scene where Chihiro is possessed and under this possession or spell, rather, she'll fight Lucas (my Inuyasha character) to the death... or until love breaks the spell...which leaves the matter of whether I need the Koga character in the story at all.. it's a little too much like the InuYasha story arc if I have all of his enemies in it in some form...Koga was a great match for Chihiro in the fanfiction cuz they could stay toe-to-toe with one another in a fight and eventually they forge an alliance with one another...which kinda goes bust at the end of things because Chihiro loses her life for Lucashmm... for that matter, do I need Anna (my version of Kagome) in there at all either?all I really need from the InuYasha universe is him, (at minimum) one of his comrades in some form (Miroku was the most logic choice because he's good with healing too, something necessary for this story to work), and a villain (Sesshomaru is the best candidate, of course)there's also the biological connotations... that's probably the biggest giveaway aside from Lucas's personality... Chihiro is shunned because she's a white tiger, something I conjured up as the result of her heritage... which is half-human...same thing with Lucas because, like Inuyasha, he's half-humanI'd like to keep this as close to the source of inspiration as I can... in a "closest to the retail price without going over" sort of way... I could easily take humans out of the equation and write that they were outcasts simply because they have white hair... I can blame it on albinism... or some genetic mutation... cuz albinism is white with red eyes and they have to have blue eyesEither way, Chihiro's father has to be someone who exists outside her clan, her family... I penned that her father was a samurai that lacked in self-confidence and her mother helped train him after he saved her life... no, I don't think I have enough brain power to conjure up something more plausible than the idea I already have in place...if I keep Anna in the story at all, the change I'd make is her about Bastian (my version of Miroku) being brother and sister... but I'm starting to think that it might be a good idea to take her out of the story to dispel similarities... meaning that I have Lucas's companion down to being like Miroku or Sango... but it's kinda hard to bring Sango back into the mix when I have things pretty solid with Miroku's likenessin fact one things that Anna brought to the story was complication... and one that was kinda hard for me to wriggle out of...Chihiro doesn't confess her feelings for Lucas until the end of the story... on her death bed... because she didn't want to get in the way of his relationship with Anna... and Anna (and for that matter, Kagome in my fanfiction) was so easy going with this the entire time... the impossible wriggle-room is that she's okay with Chihiro's developing relationship with Lucas rather than jealous or possessive... nobody is that perfectI could work up a storyline bearing little similiarity to the original source material...One of Inuyasha's deepest flaws that is a continued nuisance throughout the series is his love of Kikyo... whether in life or death, he's unable to get over her... when, meanwhile, he's in a relationship with Kagome, her reincarnation...I took Kikyo out of the equation for my doctored-up fanfiction because it was one too many love interests...I could pen up that Kagome was the one who died...and it could work with the brother-sister idea I have with Anna & Bastian were brother and sister... although it could make for an uneasy alliance between him and Lucas... especially if it was Sesshomaru that killed her... ultimately she would have been targeted because of her relationship with him... the alliance could be made because Bastian wants to get revenge for Anna's death... it's a common goal for the two of them, but there's more than just this determiningUltimately, it'll boil down to what I feel is right... making all these changes just to avoid myself getting pegged for plagiarizing... there's gotta be a little give and take if I'm really serious about trying to publish this thing...and as of right now, I still have a long way to go. I started editing it, changing from 3rd POV to 1st... from Chihiro's POV... that included an ample backstory...I can think of at least one character I can remove from the equation that I'd feel guilt-free about... InuYasha had the priestess Kaede, Kikyo's younger sister, whom Kagome met when she crossed over to the Feudal Era and learned a bit about Inuyasha and the type of world they live in with demons and about the sacred jewel... she only appeared in a couple scenes in my story under a different name... she told Chihiro about Lucas's past, what he was like and they exchanged a few bits of dialogueshe also sees her later on, after the story flashes forward, and updates her on how Lucas has been since the fateful night they all came into each other's company...She's merely there to give some extra background information that the protagonist doesn't know and obviously can't divine clairvoyently...I mean, what's more romantic... potentially... than coming in contact with a handsome stranger, on the brink of death... the only wrench in this is that Chihiro's young when she meets Lucas... Although I suppose a 5 year age difference wouldn't be a huge deal... It'd be interesting to revisit that part, if only to write that part again... It'd be hard to let go of Kagome/Anna... but to make things smoother, it might be necessary... Chihiro giving her life for Lucas is the ultimate sacrifice and this complicated relationship (beset by the relationship between Lucas and Anna) is the reason she has no regrets about it. Because she only wished for his happiness and her being there would only get in the way of them. hmm... come to think of it, that would be asking for too much... the only other time Lucas falling in love, the girl dies, and Chihiro dying would make it 2 for 2... talk about depressing...why can't she be the one to melt his cold heart, who never saw any reason to put trust in anyone before meeting her?

...right now, I'm picturing an interesting scene... the day after Chihiro meets Lucas, heals his wounds and such, he wakes up to find himself alone but his close to fatal wounds being close to fully healed... then he's having a conversation with Bastian, musing about the interesting circumstance allowed... of course this can only be something I write on the side. It's Chihiro's story so it's not like this discussion can be in the same place as her narrative.I still have a lot to figure out with this story, but I'm just saying it'd be nice if I can get things off the ground, there's more of me in there than my source of inspiration... a great, but tragic, love storyand her tragic flaw is that she lacked such self-confidence that she was afraid to love because she was afraid she'd never receive love in return...something like that...